Clive Dutton's green vision for Birmingham
Sep 30 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Post
In the second part of our exclusive interview with former Birmingham City Council regeneration director Clive Dutton, he tells Paul Dale what the city has to do to be a world-leader
Plant a million trees, create a four-acre lake in the city centre and turn Great Charles Street into a Parisian-style boulevard – these are just three of the ideas Clive Dutton will hand to his successor.
Mr Dutton, who left at the end of last week to join the London borough of Newham, drew up a list of priorities for the next decade which includes a visionary scheme to create the Birmingham Forest.
He is suggesting using 1,000 acres of green-belt farm land that the council owns near the M5 and close to the south-west of Birmingham, for a project that would involve planting one million trees and underpin the city’s green credentials.
Mr Dutton said: “We have said as a city that we will reduce CO2 emissions by 60 per cent in 20 years, but building a forest would say something extraordinarily significant about our values in Birmingham.
“We own a lot of land on the flank of the M5 and rather than having pigs, sheep and cows grazing on it, why don’t we have a target to plant a million trees?”
As far as the city centre is concerned, Mr Dutton says it has never been so important to “keep the foot on the pedal” and make sure a wide range of private sector-led major regeneration schemes are ready to go when the economy picks up.
He highlights the area around Snow Hill Station, where developers Ballymore are building quality, high-rise office blocks and, at some future stage, a five- star hotel.
Mr Dutton says the council should be pressing to redevelop Snow Hill Station in the same way that New Street Station is being refurbished.
“For Snow Hill, think Liverpool Street and Bishopsgate in London,” he adds, referring to the multi-million pound redevelopment of land next to one of the capital’s biggest railways stations where tired old buildings gave way to sleek high-rise blocks for banks and financial institutions, bars and restaurants.
To link in with Snow Hill, Mr Dutton would push forward with plans to join the two A38 Queensway tunnels, allowing Great Charles Street to be partly pedestrianised and turned into a “Parisian-style boulevard” with easy access to the Jewellery Quarter.
When reminded that this plan, first suggested in 2006 by Birmingham Labour leader Sir Albert Bore, was dismissed as “barmy” by the council’s ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, Mr Dutton simply says: “I bet they have changed their minds by now”.
His other key regeneration priorities are the 20-acre Wholesale Markets site to the south of New Street Station, which will become vacant when the market moves to Witton, and Paradise Circus.
